POLARCAP PRESENTSPOLARCAP PRESENTS

POLARCAP PRESENTS

YOU DO VOODOO...And know that we love you...

Blue eyes now closed, Malakai lies on his bed. Seen from above, he appears dead to the world, a heavy and pointless body abandoned by its spirit. He sees silver rivers boiling with fish, emerald fields embroidered with flowers. “You looking at me, pal?” The last he remembers before the blinding light inside his skull, the sickening crunch, the taste of blood in his throat. The lovely blue of the sky’s vast blueness: dappled gold in the forest’s thickness. The dry desert. He was looking. Just looking.

Hayya la-s-saleah. Hayya la-l-faleah. Malachi hears the muezzin’s call and passes through the white minaret’s shadow as he hurries towards the souk. It is not the sun’s glare but fear that compels him to fix his eyes on the dusty ground. Not everyone blames him, this is true. Some say that it is a curse, and that Malachi himself is under a spell. But, should his gaze wander, it will not stop them from spitting on their children, yawning, or secretly pressing their thumb between index and middle finger. For many, however, it is a different matter. For them, Malachi’s strangeness causes irremediable unease. Those blue eyes. The Almighty sees this, the Almighty knows this, and the Almighty will act without favour. A’uudhu billaahi minash shaitaan ar-Rajeem. Beyond the shimmering horizon, the arid desert.

Wherever he went tragedy and disaster followed all of Malochi’s days. In the town of Qaraaoun in the region of Mohafazat Beqaa the milk of nursing mothers and livestock began to dry...

BLUE EYED

According to Holstrum [1983] the name Malakai, although perhaps suggesting a

non-European, possibly Middle Eastern origin, may in fact be derived from

“de ole maloik”, an Americanised corruption of the Italian mal occhio (evil eye) that

found currency amongst the Mafia community in New York city during the 1970s.

Consequently, the thematic motif of vision is implied by Calcutt from the outset.

In this passage, as Hare notes, Calcutt imbues his sketch with a vague and

impressionistic sense of exotic mystique. The recurrent usage of Arabic, combined

with references to unfamiliar, purportedly ‘primitive’, superstitions and beliefs, is,

however, typical of certain embedded, western ‘Orientalist’ attitudes [cf. Said,

1978]. “Malakai [sic] himself may or may not be under a spell, but Calcutt’s own

wish to exploit the apparently bizarre “spelling” encountered in an unfamiliar

language merely approximates the childish invocation, ‘abracadabra’.” [Hare,

1992: 36.] More importantly, perhaps, we learn that Malachi’s blue eyes mark him

out to his fellows as distressingly unnatural. In many cultures blue is associated

with death, and is thus to be treated with suspicion. T. E. Lawrence [1926] recalled

the Bedu woman who “questioned me about the women of the tribe of Christians

and their way of life, marvelling at my white skin, and the horrible blue eyes which

looked, she said, like the sky shining through the eye-sockets of an empty skull.”

1

(continued page 12)

John Calcutt

In Liz Adamson’s work she is looking for a secular equivalent to the religious illusion. Searching for other realities within the existing “True world”, she is attempting not to refl ect the world the viewer already knows, nor to provide a form of escapism, but to bear witness to a vision of a world transformed, which involves memory, promise and personal experience.

…“The search for Truth is wonderful. Beware of the person who then claims to have found that Truth”…

Nemo in Slumberland was a newspaper strip running at the turn of the century involving a little boy who explored another world every night in his dreams. Winsor McCay’s pictorially incredible world, beautiful and sometimes dangerous is a place where the recognizable co-exists with the fanciful. He reveals the hidden reverse.

In Micromegas Voltaire creates a proto science fi ction about microbes, men and beings vaster than dreams. Liz Adamson purposely plays about with scale and the role of recognizable forms within a transformed setting.

Liz AdamsonBorn Bo’ness (1959) studied Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA). Has shown extensively in the UK, and abroad including Round Room Talbot Rice, Edinburgh, Frontstore, Basel Switzerland, La Cajachina Gallery Seville Spain. Lives and works in East Lothian and is a lecturer in Drawing and Painting at ECA.

Liz AdamsonHer imagery may be drawn from the 16th century Mira Calligraphae Monumenta, www.lovefi lm.com, research into Hoffmann La Roche, ecologically unnatural hailstones, or the Victorian exotic fern gardens in glass cases to name a few.

In the 16th century there was an effort on the part of the Holy Roman Empire to amass knowledge, particularly about the natural world. Since it was the role of the artists to impart all the knowledge of a particular subject they could fi nd, it freed them up to include the imaginative, folklore and fables. Hofnagel decorated his “scientifi c” manuscripts with real and fanciful fl ora drawing from the gardens of Ferdinand I.

Although Liz Adamson would have without a doubt found these times interesting, whilst imagining a scholarly life, tending a herb garden, hopefully avoiding plague and pestilence I am afraid she is better placed in these times post the invention of the… Dry martini… stirred… then stirred again.

2

An Unspeakable BetrayalMirror with black paint. Digital photo on German Etching Paper, 90cmx120cm, 2007

3

Hazel McLeod

Hazel McLeodAcheived a BA (Hons) Degree in Drawing and Painting at ECA in 2001and an MA Degree in Painting at Wimbledon School of Art in 2002. She has since been part of numerous group exhibitions and has had a solo exhibition in Gimpel Fils, London. Currently Hazel lives and works in Kilchoan, Ardnamurachan.

Kilmory Graveyard is the first in a series of small works which, with the addition of precisely drawn detail, form apparitions within random marks and splodges. Images seen in every day life are produced in black ink or charcoal and are perplexed as they lie within the reflective pools on the paper. It is the dichotomy of combining elements of the accidental and the contrived that assists the manifestation of this perplexity. In previous work contrariety has existed in the combination of an olde world and the mechanical industrialisation of the 20th century.

4

More particularly emulating the processional woodcuts - produced for the 16th century German Emperor Maximillian - combined with elaborately rendered JCBs, Chinook helicopters, armored cars, tanks and modern war ships. The juxtaposition reveals an unworldly place where time has transgressed. Moving on from the procession narrative I’m finding inspiration from my immediate surroundings, letting unstable meanderings heighten the strangeness of these new landscapes.

Kilmory Graveyard, pen and ink on paper, 18.5cm x 10.8cm, 2007

5

Tommy CrooksBorn in Govan (1963) studied Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee. The Art Of The Fall, Berlin. Strategic Art Gets, Embassy, Blind Sight, Titanik Artspace,

Finland. Played guitar for cult British rock group The Fall.

Tommy CrooksI built this house in my garden. It has three bedrooms and a bathroom. It also has an ensuite shower room just off the master bedroom. It has a handmade kitchen with self-closing drawers and in the living room, I have installed remote control lighting so that the purchaser can control and obtain their desired ambience. In order to build this house I had to obtain a building warrant, I employed a company of Structural Engineers and a company of Geologists who had to arrange for a drilling company to drill approximately 10 deep holes in the ground to check for voids left by mediaeval monks who took coal from the area just after the dark ages.

The drillers found one void which meant that the ground was unsafe to build on until the mineworkings were filled so I employed a grouting company who brought some heavy drilling rigs into my garden and drilled twenty one deep holes which had to be pumped full of around thirty tons of a special grouting mix until it spewed up through the pipes they had sunk into the earth. Having this machinery in my garden and the costs involved caused me such anxiety that I lost my appetite for six weeks and had to drink honey straight from the jar and eat the odd banana and handfuls of walnuts to stay alive. At one point I thought I might have a heart attack like these 40year old businessmen who

suddenly drop dead due to massive stress. I thought about how my story might occupy one short column of a third rate scottish tabloid like these stories do. I had to raise a fortune to pay for all of these companies and I had no money to do this so I went on to the internet and applied for nine different credit cards, the ones with 0% interest. I raised thirty five grand in nineteen days by this method and paid off everyone involved. That made me feel like a prizefighter who turns the fight in the last round after enduring a relentless beating and after six weeks of not eating properly I felt lean, manic and coiled like sprung steel.

I had to pay back the credit card companies so I took a portion of the thirty five grand and spent it on renovations to my own house which enabled me to remortgage it and borrow a further eighty grand out of which I paid back the thirty five grand to the credit card people. The money I had left was used to start building the foundations of the new house. When the foundations were built I borrowed another twenty five grand from the credit card companies after reapplying for several cards on the internet. That wasn`t quite enough money so I took a thirty one grand overdraft and borrowed another thirty three from private sources.

6

FARMHAND HOUSE, Tranent, BW No: 05/00460/BW, giclee print on canvas, 830mm x 952mm, 2006

I finished the house and moved into it and then I put it on the market last week for offers over £169,000.

A couple came to view it and the man said to me. “How much do you want for the house?” I said. “I would like xxx xxx xxx”. The next day the man phoned me and said. “We want the house and We know you want xxx xxx xxx for it. I`m willing to offer you xxx xxx xxx” I said. “Let me think about it and I`ll phone you back in the morning”In the morning I phoned him and said. “I want xxx xxx xxx for it but if you meet me half way I`ll let you have it for xxx xxx xxx.” He said. “Ok it`s a deal”

He phoned his lawyer who phoned my lawyer and officially lodged his offer. When he moves in I will pay off all of the loans I have mentioned. This is the way I do Voodoo.

7

Norman ShawBorn in 1970 in Ullapool, grew up in the Scottish Highlands. He received an MA (Fine Art) from Edinburgh University, an MPhil (History of Art) and an MFA (Painting) from ECA before gaining a PhD from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee in 2003. He has lectured in both History of Art and Fine Art practice at the University of Edinburgh and at ECA, and now lectures in Fine Art at the University of Dundee. Shaw’s practice ranges from exhibiting visual artworks and publishing texts to the production, performance and release of music as nimrod33.

Norman Shaw

Sidereal wood, ink on paper, 2007

Winding within wind and flitting thinly through thought from uttermost aeons; aged and ravenous with shiverings in its wake, seeping through bone and silently fingering the folds of her mind.

The owl-haunted belfry pricks the sickled starry sky. Necrotonal waveforms slide sickly in haunted airs. Hidden door in hollow hill nihil ajar in sunless yew trees gothic skelf glens flowing with limpid burns of holy sap.

Sun disc dawn fruit of the whorled tree ruddy pied radiant splayed o’er pale pillar glandular capped piping moon-spawnrivulets from cat-haunted hunts for the dog-bright star.

Serious eye over Atlantis Egypt-driven and Christ-fuelled Horus on horizon Bridhe asleep dreams stone aisles wells and birch knolls leaves fairy folks in old oaks closed. Metamagician.

HOLY SAP

8

Dream-punctured curtains of night cloak the fervent cottage (burn witchfinder’s daughter unholy water). Lost in the last woods. Un-nam’d forms deviously patterned fretting at the borders zealous and watchful. In the stale room a ticking clock slowly on the lacework dies.

Wrong rites writ forbidden laws observed. Spiked song in strange scales burrows and coils sickly antisunwise transfixed writhing bloodly arched guitar grove theolithic altar whimpering thicket voice deep in degenerate wood throned the Unborn secret fire the Unbegotten fathers The Black Goat With A Thousand Young shrouded ascetic under pulsing waves of elsewhere twined for starlags in the nethermind.‘You shall starve and the vultures will eat.’The hissing died to a tremulous whisper.‘We are your offspring’ was the distant answer.Mind burns. All fires are one.

In my studio practice I install, paint and alter found objects within a space which I continually readjust and document over time. I reorganize parts of the space by moving objects and re-working them in relation to their new spatial context.

In this work I was inspired by the functional qualities of this fire guard. I thought about the formal qualities of the object with its internal and external structure. I started to think about the motion of fire how it moves, busying and pursuing, driving forward and sweeping behind. I also noticed that the guard had small square openings which made me think of the containing and filtering of a substance. Because of the internal and external qualities of the guard I then began to view the piece as a body filtering out thought into speech.

Anneli HolstrumCurrently studying Drawing and Painting at ECA, Cardboard Castle The Basement, Tribute to the Ancestors, Lizagrund Island, Nominated for Yale, Ingaged, The Wee Red, RSA Student Exhibition

Anneli Holstrum

All tied out, mixed media, 2007

As the piece developed I began to consider how people relate to fire places as a place of contemplation and relaxation. I then drew connections between the use of television as domestic object associated with relaxation and passive viewing. The filtering theme I had associated with speech, I then began to relate to how a television filters information. To me the television as an object is intriguing as it contains activity and movement whereas engagement with the object is generally a static experience.

10

...In the town of Qal‘at Nusayran Nimr in the region of Mohafazat Liban-Nord were witnessed plagues of stomach aches, dry coughs, diarrhoea, itching hair loss, and dry skin. In the town of Haouch Rafqá in the region of Mohafazat Beqaa livestock died, machines failed to work, carts of fruit toppled, brick walls collapsed. In the town of Karaag˘aç in the region of Diyarbakir Ili the populace fell victim to vomiting and dehydration, were beset with problems concerning their blood, their breathing and their eyesight. In the town of Malki¯yah in the region of Wilayat al Bahr al Ahmar there was a lack of rain, the drying up of wells, the withering of fruit and impotence in men. In the town of Janaj wa Kafr ad Dawwar in the region of Muhafazat Kafr ash Shaykh young and old alike became incapable of love. In all these places Malochi was accused and brought before the local judicial authorities, where he was forced to enter courtroom backwards to avoid any contact between his blue eyes and those of the judge. An outcast in his own world, filled with great sadness and woe, Malochi finally accepted the offer of his blind, emigrant brother-in-law. Although Malochi spoke no English, working in the kitchen of the hotel would be possible. He wondered what life in the town of Dunbar in the region of East Lothian would hold. Beyond the shimmering horizon, the oasis.

Late in the cool afternoon Malaki shook off his wooziness and took his kagool from the hook on the door. He felt good, less like a bhoot, as he looked at the pool of thin light that flooded onto the floor of the room. It seemed like a welcome reminder of his childhood, and it soothed his poor mood. He had been brooding, cooped in these

Dunbar? This has puzzled even those commentators such as Summerton [1989]

and Todd [2006] who have chosen to give the matter some thought. The most

unlikely of settings for his story, perhaps Calcutt delighted in the implausible, or

perhaps his choice was determined by the surprising fact that Dunbar is twinned

with Baghdad. The revised spelling of Malakai’s name seems consistent with

Calcutt’s interest in phonemic ‘shifters’ insofar as they relate to the signifying

properties of proper names. The Orientalist-inspired mania reaches it peak in this

passage.

Critical opinion is divided on this section. Some claim that Calcutt’s wordplay is

“an annoying mannerism” [Shaw, 1983], or “mere self-indulgence an unfortunate

characteristic of much of his later work “ [Crooks, 1996]. Choudhry [1989] is more

forgiving, detecting in the obsessive use of words containing “oo” a faint and

distant echo of Perec’s “La Disparition” [1969] in which the author dispensed

12

John Calcutt(continued from page 1) for too long, and like a cockatoo in a zoo he needed to be set loose.

He needed food, something cooked, something to boost his sagging spirit. He tied his boots, groomed his hair, carefully smoothed his hood, and headed outdoors. But once afoot the neighbourhood looked cruel. From the crooked roots of the drooping dogwoods by the school and the sooty rooks on the Co-op roof he derived a looming sense of doom. He looped around the Moor’s Hook, scooted down Broomwood Street, past the bookies, and entered The Balloon. Edging past the boozy pool players, he stood at the old wooden bar and ordered his meal. Feeling a little foolish in his woollen salwar kameez, he slid towards a vacant stool in a gloomy booth. He was reading his book, idly scooping foam with his coffee spoon, when the tattooed football hooligans trooped in.

Was it provoked by Malakai’s unusual dress, or perhaps by the strange characters on the pages of the Qu’ran on the table in front of him? It was, Maloik thought, the merest of inadvertent glances on his part, but it was met with violent anticipation. Racism, xenophobia, paranoid fear of the “terrorist threat”, or random, unmotivated drunken aggression: It may have been any or all of these. “You looking at me, pal?” This is the last Maloki remembers before the blinding light inside his skull, the sickening crunch, the taste of blood in his throat. Beyond the shimmering horizon, the mirage.

entirely with the letter e. In this insistent use of the “oo” form, McLeod [1996: b]

detects Calcutt’s extension by typographic means of the theme of looking, the

“oo” form being visually suggestive of a pair of eyes. Thereby, McLeod suggests,

the text appears to ‘look ‘back at the reader. Developing McLeod ‘s thesis,

Kuehne and Klein [1998] draw upon the work of Octavio Paz and Vilém Flusser

to propose a theory of the magical properties of the text-as-image. Although

not actually appearing in Calcutt’s brief story, the word Voodoo is, they argue,

“the absent presence that lies at its heart and secretly animates all those other

instances of the “oo” formation that are included.” [78]. From Fujii’s study [2001]

of his surviving notes it appears that Calcutt was keen to include reference to

Douglas Adams’ Hooloovoo at some point in his story. The Hooloovoo, as

conceived by Adams in The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is a superintelligent

shade of the colour blue, a fact that would have allowed Calcutt to augment this

chromatic sub-theme in his text. Furthermore, its inclusion would have satisfied

the various demands: for the “oo” typographic structure, for lexicographical

obscurity, and for appropriate assonantal value. Modern readers should perhaps

be relieved that Calcutt abandoned this ill-conceived attempt. Incidentally, as

Adamson and Windle [2006] note in their nominalist study, the Moor’s Hook,

Broomwood Street and The Balloon do not exist in Dunbar.

l

This essay has been reprinted by kind permission of the Doune Press and the Estate of John Calcutt. The editors wish to thank Professor David Nixon for his informative commentary.

© The Estate of John Calcutt© David Nixon. 2007.

13

If I manage to reach the top of the stairs before the door shuts, I’ll win the lottery.

If I manage not to stand on the join between the slabs, my dog won’t die.

If I manage to get into the parking lot in one go, we’ll get the flat.

If I eat up my plate, the weather will be fine.

If I manage to throw the paperball right into the waste basket, I’ll become famous.

If I down the pint in one, the plane won’t crash.

If I manage to blow out all the candles on my birthday cake, I’ll stay healthy.

If I light the candles on the christmas tree from the bottom to the top, my aunt won’t come.

If I manage to dial the right number without looking at the digits, I won’t have an accident.

If the number of steps I have to make to get to to the car is an odd one, the elevator won’t get stuck.

If the banana weighs more than the apple, the share price will rise.

If I manage never to throw away this ugly figurine, I’ll be lucky for the rest of my life.

Menu by Kühne/Klein

Hendrikje Kühne and Beat KleinHendrikje Kühne (1962) and Beat Klein (1956) started their collaboration at the Artists’ Work Programme at IMMA, Dublin 1998. They have shown extensively in Great Britain, Ireland and Europe. They live in Switzerland (Basel) and France. www.xcult.org/kuehne.klein

Kühne and Klein

McVoodo, laminated prints, 20x40cm, 2007

14

McVoodoo

Takaya FujiiBorn in Kyoto, 1953, Artist and independent Curator. Director of non profi t making gallery - Galerie Weissraum, Kyoto, Japan. Exhibitions include: ‘Seven Kinds of Whites’, Gallerie Weissraum, Kyoto, ‘the Seed Danced on Wind and Poured on the Earth’, H6, Hilden and ‘Salzfenster’, Produzentengalerie, Plan D, Dusseldorf. www.geocities.jp/weissraum/

Takaya Fujii

16

Withered in winter

a lotus fl ower leaves the seeds

after having been scattered

now we are the seeds

cannot germinate

spring

would not come again anymore

it is the times of withered in winter

impossible to dream of Jodo for us

we are the seeds

cannot germinate ONRI EDO

we avoid and leave this world became corrupt in worldly desires

GONNGU JODO

we only want to go to Jodo

titles became a dead language already

without praying

we can do nothing

however

it is the only way we can

to pray (Jodo is The Buddhist Elysian Fields,the Pure Land,Sukhavati)

Withered in winter, mixed media, installation, 2007

17

...Graeme Todd has in more than one sense distanced himself from, to use his words, “a moribund issue”, and entered a world of open diversity and retrospective reflection, which quixotically is presented in contemporary terms as ‘a mirroring’. This by no means distances him from the flow of the now, in fact this distance is a constructed bemused withdrawal, to place himself at a vantage point from which he may have a very open view of the past and its conjunction with the present. This is not so atypical of the artist today. It is, however, rare in its emphasis on the vicarious analogues that run within the works and its ironic cul de sac of reversion and abstract counterpoint. One suspects

Graeme ToddBorn in Glasgow in 1962, studied Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee. Has exhibited extensively including solo shows at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Kunsthaus Glarus, Switzerland, Leeds Metropolitan University and Osaka Contemporary Arts Centre. Lives and works in East Lothian and is a lecturer in Drawing and Painting at ECA.

Graeme Todd

that behind the use of landscape quotation and its consequent ideal, romantic striving after transcendence, there is a more ironic exercise. He moves through a series of quotations, drawn from material almost accidentally found or browsed, and then purposely destroys their mood, their connotations put somewhere else in that axiom of an ever and ‘endlessly rising canon’. The idea of ‘the canon ‘ itself is put under scrutiny; it becomes a staircase that has not been completed, or perhaps a chain of self contained sections that lead to successive blind alleys...1

1. Alan Johnston, Formlos: the Transparent Mirror: a Mediaeval abstract

18

Two Heads are Better than One, acrylic and varnish on panel, 120cm x 105cm, 2007

19

TrEE S!Al SPEEK TO SToOnmOn S!Al SPEEK TO STarTaEd S!Al SPEEK TO S!orgad S!Al SPEEK TO mAnS!AdoO S!Al SPEEK TO SelF

Michael WindleBorn 1958 studied Painting at Duncan of Jordanstone, before taking up residence at Delfina Studios in the east end of London in the early nineties. Since returning to Scotland ten years ago his work has become more focused on video and multi media. He collaborated with the composer Brian Cope on a commission “Beginning Ending’ for the Threshold installation at Perth Concert Hall last year and renews the partnership for this project “Pilgrim” Mike is a Lecturer in Digital art at ECA. www.porty.net/pilgrim

Michael Windle

PILGRIM A nonlinear video journey split screen projection, Michael Windle 2007

Music Words With

20

Brian CopeJim RankinMarcus Claridge and Alison Smith

21

Edward Summerton’s fascination with the representation of nature and natural history can sometimes cause more concern than satisfaction. He continues to make works of almost pure misdirection, simultaneously invitational with skill of hand, yet isolating with the idea-spasm of a half recognised horror image. Culled from some perfectly fabricated diorama from the Museum of Doubt; the environment replicates the small spare space existing between the housing schemes and the landscape, which is wilfully scattered with his paintings, books, prints, photographs, sound works, objects and collaborations, like the after effects of an ill fated event of the rural calendar; with the last standing, staggering, log- mask wearing, goat- horn booted community centre reject, silently sifting through the demented visual remnants.

Summerton is one of Scotland’s international artists, surviving in the backwoods, celebrating the weird and the redneck. His cryptic works are filled with expectation and transformation, drawing the viewer deeper in, forced to rely on instinct and imagination to find their way.

Edward SummertonAn artist whose work has expanded from the practice of painting into books, prints, sound works, objects and collaboration. He has recently organised events and exhibitions, which have included Blind Sight, Doctor Skin, Bird of the Devil and Digital VD. He is a Fine Art lecturer at Duncan of Jordanstone College, University of Dundee. www.edwardsummerton.co.uk

Edward Summerton

His wanderings and investigations in The Strict Nature Reserve have been exhibited from the Far East, throughout Europe and North America and “ Line Controller” a publication documenting his journey along the North Coast of Lapland of a part seen and part imagined world was purchased by MOMA - New York.

He is acknowledged for the position of holding numerous awards, accolades and invitations into selected associations. With Dr. Norman Shaw he was a founding member of the SMEARS Society, recognised for their disorientating excursions in the wilderness. His excellence in painting awarded him a membership of the RSA and his hip replacement priest Saint Vitus dance instantly elected him as the entertainments officer for the AAOCP. He is currently a senior lecturer and researcherfor the School of Fine Art, Duncan of Jordanstone College, University of Dundee.

22

TREE CREEPY

Tree Creepy, gouache on book illustration, 17cm x 11.5cm, 2006

23

Stuart Macgregor or ‘The Sandy Bell’s Man’ was a little known poet and folk singer from Edinburgh. His poems and songs about his love and hate of his city, it’s streets, hills and bars, are words that come to mind when I live and work in Edinburgh.

Alexa HareStudied Drawing and Painting (BAhons 2006) ECA. Lives and works in Edinburgh. ‘100 Greatest Pop Videos Ever’, Spinach Collective, Edinburgh, ‘Roll Over’, Hyperground, Edinburgh, ‘Protest Against the Rising of Conformity’, Flesh Unlimited, Edinburgh. Graduated with the Robin Phillipson Medal for painting and an unusual knowledge of black paint.

Alexa Hare

NORTH SONG

And if the haar crawls slowly up from Leith,Chilling the flesh and bone, the flanks and teeth,And if the wind turns east in the afternoonTo mock the calendar that points to June,And if the sky is hard as lead and coal And streets are tombs that have no sound or soul,And if the faces of the young and oldAnd grey and sad and cold-

I’ll wave the sour and moaning heart away,For in my head I nurse a magic dayWhen once I walked upon the Blackford HillIn sun, after a week of rain and chill;For at my feet there lay nine shades of greenThat kings and southern eyes have never seen.

by Stuart MacGregor Taken from, ‘Four Points Of A Saltire’ 23 Livingston Pl. Edinburgh

24

Worms of Morningside, mixed media, 2007

Rabiya Choudry

Rabiya ChoudhryBorn in Glasgow 1982 studied Drawing and Painting (BAMA) from ECA, lives and works in Edinburgh. New Work Scotland, Collective Gallery, Prague Biennalle, Zoo Art Fair London www.missuschoudhry.co.uk

26 27

The Seed, pen and ink on paper, 2 x A5, 2007

I have a thing about onion skins. I have to place them in the bin discreetly, wrapped, not loose, not in the compost, and certainly not in the wood-burning stove. They have to be properly disposed of. And money: I can’t throw money away. Not even those bits of foreign change I find in the bottom of a coat I haven’t worn since the last time I went abroad. A couple of years ago I was working in Eastern Europe, which is where most of these small coins come from. They sit in small jars on my desk, next to a black packet of Moldovan cigarettes - brand name Lucifer - which cost me 8p, and nearly made my lungs bleed.Even though I’ve lived in Edinburgh for more than five years now, I still fancy myself as an itinerant wandering writer. It’s an itch that needs scratching. I don’t know if I actually want to live abroad again: those few years away were the hardest, loneliest and most magical time of my life. I used to live in Mongolia. I’d been fascinated by Mongolia for a long time before I went there. The first time I saw it, was in that cellophane-backed atlas we had at school: the kind where countries were still daubed in the colours of the various empires that had invaded them. The British Empire was great splodges of pink across the world. Mongolia on the other hand was huge and obscure beige. It caught my eye because it seemed to be in the centre of the earth, and I couldn’t think why anyone would live there. It’s a long story, but anyway I ended up visiting Mongolia for three days, and staying there for almost three years. The capital, Ulaanbaatar, is the coldest capital city on earth. The food is dire and alcoholism practically a national sport.

There were times when I really struggled in Ulaanbaatar. I was mugged by two men late one night, which was terrifying. And a good friend of mine was murdered ten minutes after I said goodnight to him. He was shot in the head as he entered his own flat after walking me home. It wasn’t a robbery: they took nothing except his life. The file still says unsolved. We held a memorial out in the dry steppe, next to a sacred cairn which we all circled three times to bless his journey, and lay his spirit to rest. His name was Tim. But, despite that murder, and the drunks and awful food, Mongolia was magical. Every aspect of people’s lives is infused with ritual. People don’t use words like magic or voodoo or supernature in Mongolia: they just get on with it. But I did voodoo in Mongolia. Aige haad, or Mother Rock, is a popular shrine for local students to visit, especially at exam time. Mongolians are supremely pragmatic in their beliefs and rituals: in times of need they go to their Gods, offer their gifts, and pray in earnest for exactly what it is they want. I drove to Mother Rock with a group of Mongolians and a few other ex-pats. The Rock isn’t far from Ulaanbaatar. It’s set in a narrow valley, and the first thing I noticed was the light. Everything around us was sunlit, except for the Mother Rock shrine. It lay in cold shadow, impenetrable and oblivious to the sun.We parked the Landrover and clambered out. It was quite a sight. Even though it was early, there were crowds of people milling round with their rowdy kids. The shrine Herself was inside a corral built entirely from bricks of tea. The tea leaves and stems are dried and compressed into large bricks, and the wall of tea was as high as my

DO YOU DO VOODO?

28

Louisa Waugh waist. I entered the corral from the right, through a high archway completely swathed in Haadags, sacred scarves: blue, white, yellow and raggedy orange. We each fell silent as we stepped inside. The ground inside was totally littered. Mongolians were squatting, lighting pyres for incense, splashing local vodka into shallow bowls for offerings, or pouring saucers of home-made yoghurt, curds or cream. The entire shrine was an alter. There was stuff everywhere, and the whole place reeked of sour milk and rancid butter, smoke, incense and sweat. I started feeling drunk on the fumes. I picked my way forward woozily, steering myself towards the Mother Herself. I couldn’t see Her rocky skin. She was also completely swathed in scarves: and she was small, about the height of my shoulder. There was a young woman leaning against her, crying and muttering to herself, or to the Rock.I circled the Mother slowly, bowing my head. My forehead brushed against the haadags. They were greasy and thin from being touched by countless other foreheads. I prayed to Her intently, and quite fearfully, telling Her exactly what I wanted, and asking Her to please grant me this if She would. I didn’t want to cross her. I could feel her presence. All I had to offer was the scarf around my own neck. I took it off and wove it carefully through the others, bowing my head to Her again. Then slowly I walked out of the shrine. A couple of days before I visited Mother Rock, a friend had told me a story about a local man who apparently went to the Rock when he was drunk, and urinated against Her. He drove home afterwards, and

crashed his car on the way back. He died instantly. When I saw and felt the Rock, I completely believed the story. Mother Rock is a wild primeval spirit: She’s Animist, Shamanic, Buddhist. She gives and denies, heals and afflicts, and she demands respect. This is all I know about voodoo. It’s got nothing to do with sticking pins in dolls. Whatever we call it, it’s bigger than we are, and the Gods and spirits all around us need to be honoured. Which brings me back to the onion skins. I spent my last year in Mongolia living with nomads, who honour their sprits of the land, the air, the water, and fire, all of their lives. Onion skins offend Gaal, the fire spirit, so they have to be buried carefully, or put in a bin wrapped up in paper. And never throw money away: even if it is loose change you cannot spend, it is a gift. Offer it back and pray for what you really want. But be very careful: She may just grant what you ask for. For Tim

Louisa Waugh Born in Berlin, published by Wedenfield and Nicolson, Abacus,

Little Brown. Books include “Hearing Birds Fly: A year in a Mongolian Village”

which won the Ondaatje Prize. “Selling Olga: Stories of Human Trafficking and

Resistance”

Liz Adamson . Hazel McLeod . Tommy Crooks . Norman Shaw . Anneli Holstrum . Kuehne and Klein

Takaya Fujii . Graeme Todd . Michael Windle . Edward Summerton . Alexa Hare . Rabiya Choudhry

13 ARTISTS WHOSE WORK INVOLVES ASPECTS OF MAGIC, RITUAL & SUPERNATURE, WORKING IN DISCIPLINES INCLUDING DIGITAL PROJECTION, PAINTING AND SCULPTURAL INSTALLATION.

printed on trees from sustainable forests on chlorine free paper

Basically Tool Hire Supporting The Arts in East Lothian